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Congress is Back in Session

School and Congress are back in session, yet it looks like Republicans didn’t get the memo.

After a great August work period in NYC, I came back to DC ready to get to work on Tuesday but, per usual, this do-nothing Republican Congress is doing just that.

As we mark 1 year since the President cruelly ended DACA and since Hurricanes Maria and Irma ravaged Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Dreamers are still living in limbo and the islands are still dealing with power outages as the official death counts continue to rise. This administration, and the Republicans in Congress that enables it, refuses to act even when lives are at stake. This is unacceptable.

We sent our students back to school with no action on gun violence or plan to lower the costs of higher education. In short, the GOP is ignoring the needs of the American people.

I want to get to work. We need a permanent solution so that Dreamers, who are American in every way but on paper, feel safe in their homes. We need better policies to expand affordable housing, which I outlined at a hearing this week. We need to start tackling income inequality and closing the enormous gap between the haves and the have nots. We need hearings and oversight of this out of control Administration and real help for the people of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands so that these communities can rebuild. We need real gun reform that will keep our children and teachers safe – and that does not mean arming teachers as Education Secretary DeVos suggested. And we need to make changes so that higher education is within reach for each and every student who chooses that path.

While we are stalled in Washington by Republican inaction, I want to share some exciting news about opportunities in the district for students.

Next weekend, we will have the first meeting of the school year of my Congressional Youth Cabinet. I’m looking forward to hearing from these future leaders on the issues they want to focus on as we approach the end of 2018 and a new Congress in 2019.

The 2018 Congressional App Challenge is now underway and open to all middle school and high school students. Applications are due October 15. You can learn more here.

And stay tuned for more #CongressYourCorner events where we can chat in person about things that are important to you and your family.

As always, your concerns remain my top priority. Please feel free to reach out via email or on social media.